RBS CEO Hester Says Taking Bonus Would Be ’Damaging for RBS’

Feb. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc
Chief Executive Officer Stephen Hester said he decided to forego
his bonus because “it would be damaging for RBS to stay in the
intensity of the spotlight that we’d got into.”

The bank, rescued by the taxpayer in 2008, is “held in
some respects to a higher standard,” he said in an interview
with BBC Radio 4’s “Today” program. “We have to behave in a
way that leads on some of these difficult issues.” Still, he
said, “we can’t be completely different.”

Hester said RBS is engaged in defusing “the biggest
timebomb in history” which, if done well, will be “an
incredibly valuable thing for the country.”

“We would make a mistake as a society if if we forget how
wealth is generated, how successful people are motivated,” he
said.